Friday, June 30, 1876. A rainy day.

The wounded from the Battle of the Little Big Horn reached the steamer Far West.  It was a rainy day.

The steamer departed at 1:40, continually hitting the banks of the river on the way downstream.

The Cheyenne who had been at Little Big Horn had moved down near where they had fought Crook on the Rosebud.  They were pursuing game.

Gibbon was left completely in charge of his command at 4:00 p.m. that day.  A roster was called of the 7th Cavalry to see who remained.

Frank Grouard, who was half polynesian, and who had been captured by, and had lived with, the Sioux as a young man, taking a Sioux wife.  In spite of that close association he later "escaped" and became a scout.  His biography is particularly odd and complicated and this barely touches on it.

Crook's troops remained in camp on Goose Creek on what was a rainy day there as well.  Scout Frank Grouard went sent scouting and returned finding nothing.  In fact, Sitting Bull's camp was moving straight for them.

Three miners strayed into the camp and told Crook that natives had told them of a large battle in which cavalrymen had been wiped out. Crook didn't believe them and began to organize a hunting party into the Bighorns in what would become one of the greatest hunting and fishing expeditions of all time.

Last entry:

June 29, 1876. Evacuating the wounded and turning east.

Labels: 1870s, 1876, Alfred Terry, Battle of Little Big Horn, Canada, Equine Transportation, Great Sioux War, Indian Wars, John Gibbon, Marcus Reno, Myths, North West Mounted Police, Yellowstone Expedition